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When I worked for my mentor The Very Rev. Heidi Kinner out in Montana, she made sure that part of my duties was to maintain a life or prayer in my work of ministry. She made sure I took a retreat day once a month, as well as an extended retreat after almost a year into my service. Not only did she have me help prepare for a parish-wide weekend series during Lent, she also made sure I had time to talk and learn from the leader of that workshop. I was grateful for these moments as they helped me feel closer to God and made my life in Montana more full as a result.
They also helped prepare me for what was ahead. After I finished my time working for Heidi, I went on to seminary. During the summer after our first year, it is traditional for seminarians to undergo a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE. This is chaplaincy work, typically in the hospital, with the idea that as you help others on their spiritual journey, you are working on your own spiritual and psychological understanding as well.
My experience of CPE was pretty terrifying, and that was all because of our supervisor. It was like being in a group where someone is continually psychologically experimenting on you and subtly working to pit everyone in the group against each other. I learned much later that our supervisor was employing Gestalt theory on us, a branch of psychology that is largely unused and is only still discussed for the single helpful technique that has come from it. What I have learned and experienced of Gestalt theory is that it is evil and no one of a moral or just mind should ever employ it ever.
I came back pretty broken from my CPE experience. The only reason I didn’t quit halfway through was because it was a requirement, both from seminary and from my Diocese. Yet my professors, when I came back, decided, in their infinite wisdom, that I should do another unit of CPE. My Diocese agreed, so I spent the last part of my second year of seminary trying, at the last minute, to find a program that would take me.
After my previous experience, I was fearful and, quite frankly, angry. Yet I was somehow able to find a program that this time fit me. Through this unit, I was able to serve those who live with various mental disabilities and illnesses at Holy Comforter Episcopal Church in Atlanta. It ended up being a wonderful time for me and for my budding ministry.
Yet I was still shaken up inside. I was still angry. I still needed some healing. I needed to spend time letting God back in once again.
For that, I turned to the place that had helped me so many times before: Montana. Heidi was kind enough to make arrangements for me to stay, with the one caveat that I would spend some time working with her youth group once again.
As I got ready to make my own spiritual journey, I told Heidi about everything that had happened that past year. She paused for a moment, and then said to me words I will not soon forget: “Trey, are you mad at God for something God did, or for something people did?”
Those words have staid with me, and they stuck with me because of the work I had done before. All that time I spent coming closer to God helped me listen to our Lord better. So when Heidi gave me those words I needed to hear from our Lord, I listened. I internalized those words. Those words from God helped get me better. There are times throughout my ministry when I’ve needed to repeat these words to myself like a mantra, as I will continue to do whenever I find need of them.
If I hadn’t prepared myself before the dark times, I wouldn’t have been ready to meet them. Yes, CPE broke me. That select group of seminary professors fractured me more. I had to climb my way back to God’s presence, and I could not have done that if I hadn’t been ready and prepared.
This is what the Season of Advent is about: Preparation. That is what our readings remind us of today.
Whether through an expression of joy or even one of apocalypse and calamity as we see in the Gospel, our readings call on us to be ready. We are called to prepare ourselves to let God in. The Heavenly Jerusalem, not set up for one group of people but for all, doesn’t just come overnight. That day where we can “beat our swords into plowshares and study the war no more” doesn’t come about in a single effort. Laying aside “the works of darkness” and putting “on the armor of light” takes time to get ready. To be ready to let God in means being prepared. It means doing the work to be ready.
As our Gospel point out, the preparation of Advent has traditionally, since the start of this celebration by the early church, been about being ready for the Second Coming. Christmas is not this season’s first concern. That season really got tacked on later. We remember the coming of the Christ Child in large part to remind ourselves that Jesus will one day return at the end of all things.
Yet even to be prepared for that coming, we must do the work to let God in so that when our Lord comes there will be a comfortable and familiar home waiting for Him already. The task of Advent is really to do the work we are always called on to do: prepare ourselves to let God in.
That work of preparation is not an easy one. It takes time and effort. Yet that work we put in is worth it, more than we can ever imagine. As I can attest with my own life, it is enough to get us through the dark and difficult times. It is enough to see us through, even if we are broken and beaten at the end. Being prepared to let God in can take us through the time of His return to this world, just as it can prepare us for the joy of God’s Incarnation in this world which led to our salvation through His Resurrection. So take the time. Do the work. Make yourselves prepared and ready to let God in.